Pressurized suit-hip waist

ABSTRACT

A torso in a pressurized suit is joined to substantially parallel convolutes in the thighs of each leg by a hip-waist, or lower trunk portion which includes parallel convolutes substantially across the area from the groin to the waist, and a small number of shaped convolutes together with a sheer panel to form a hip and crotch transition between the parallel convolutes of the lower trunk and the parallel convolutes of the thighs. The shear panel may comprise three panels with the warp of the center panel perpendicular to the warp of the outer panels. A pair of doubly-crossed cables, from the center of the lower trunk in front through the crotch to the center of the lower trunk in the back, provide plug-load restraint.

United States Patent [72] Inventors Douglas E. Getchell 2,967,305 1/1961 White et al. 2/2.1 Windsor Locks; FOREIGN PATENTS Edwin Vail, Simsbury; Michael 1,038,963 8/19'66 England 2/2.1 Marroni, Jr., Weatogue, Conn.; Harvey A. I smith, Hampden, Mass. Primary ExamznerJordan Frankl n [21 1 APPL 785,711 Assistant Examzner-George Krizrnamch [22] Filed 20,1968 Attorney-Melvin Pearson Williams [45] Patented Apr. 13, 1971 [73] Assignee United Aircraft Corporation East Hartford, Conn.

ABSTRACT: A torso in a pressurized suit is joined to substantially parallel convolutes in the thighs of each leg by a [54] WAIST hip-waist, or lower trunk portion which includes parallel g g convolutes substantially across the area from the groin to the [52] US. Cl 2/2.1 waist, and a small number of shaped convolutes together with [51] Int. Cl A62b 17/00 a sheer panel to form a hip and crotch transition between the [50] Field of Search... parallel convolutes of the lower trunk and the parallel (A); 92/(No search); 61/(No search); 128/ 1 1, convolutes of the thighs. The shear panel may comprise three 1-01 panels with the warp of the center panel perpendicular to the warp of the outer panels. A pair of doubly-crossed cables, References Cited from the center of the lower trunk in front through the crotch UNITED STATES PATENTS to the center of the lower trunk in the back, provide plug-load 2,505,504 4/1950 Roodner 2/224 restraint 5 5% 7 5(9 ii I J6 fi/ 7 l) PRESSURIZED SUIT-HIP WAIST BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to pressurized suits, such as space suits, and more particularly to an improved lower trunk (hip, waist and crotch) assembly therefor.

2. Description of the Prior Art Through many years of experimentation and development, it has become known that pressurized suits, such as those worn in high altitude aviation and space exploration, become extremely rigid when pressurized to any degree. As a result, nearly every portion of the suit which is flexible when unpressurized becomes extremely stiff under pressure. This stiffness requires a large torque in order to be overcome, which in turn makes many manipulations of the body, which are simple in street clothes, nearly impossible in the suit. Additionally, even relatively minor movements within the suit result in a high degree of fatigue of the wearer.

As a result of pressure, a suit tends to stretch and to enlarge circumferentially. The tendency towards stretching is as a result of plug load, that is, the pressure tending to push the top of the helmet upwardly and the tips of the gloves and boots downwardly. The stretching circumferentially outwardly is as a result of hoop load due to the tendency of the pressure within the suit to cause the entire suit to expand (as in a balloon). The difficulty heretofore has been a tendency to design the various portions of the suit to provide both plugload and hoop-load restraint, so that the suit will remain at a proper size when pressurized, while at the same time treating the flexibility of the suit more or less in a fashion in which the suit would be expected to operate without pressure therein.

One particular difficulty in suits available heretofore has been the large amount of torque required for both torso and hip flexion, as well as hip adduction, hip abduction, and hip rotation. A detailed example of the difficulties of hip and torso mobility in pressurized suits known to the prior art is given hereinafter.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION The object of the present invention is to provide a lower trunk assembly for a pressurized suit which gives a high degree of freedom at low torque in hip and torso flexion, abduction, and adduction.

According to the present invention, the lower trunk assembly of a pressurized suit includes convolutes throughout the lower trunk, whereby flexibility is provided to accommodate trunk and hip movements. In further accord with the present invention, the parallel convolutes of the lower trunk are joined to substantially parallel convolutes of each thigh of a pressurized suit by a relatively short section of shaped convolutes together with a shear panel for the crotch thereof. According still further with the present invention, the shear panel has plural sections with different warp orientation.

The present invention eliminates successively sized, tapered convolutes known to prior art thighs, and provides an extremely flexible waist-to-thigh transition assembly, including the hips, lower trunk and crotch.

The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent in the light of the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment thereof, as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is a simplified front elevation of lower trunk and thigh sections of an exemplary space suit known to the prior art;

FIG. 2 is a partial side elevation of the pressurized suit portion illustrated in FIG. 1, showing said suit portion in natural forward hip and/or torso flexion when under pressure;

FIG. 3 is a side elevation of the pressurized suit portion illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2 showing the actual form of flexion achieved as a result of torque applied thereto by a wearer;

FIG. 4 is a front elevation of a portion of a pressurized suit illustrating a waist-to-thigh transition in accordance with the present invention, including the hip, waist and crotch in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a side elevation of the suit portion illustrated in FIG. 4 in accordance with the present invention; and

FIG. 6 is a front elevation of an alternative hip-crotch assembly according to the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A prior art space suit which is typical of those used heretofor, and which is not designed for adequate flexibility in torso and hip flexion, abduction and adduction is illustrated in FIGS. 1-3. FIG. 1 is a front elevation, showing a lower trunk portion 10 attached to two thigh portions 12, 14. The dotted lines 16 illustrate generally the position of a man within the suit. It should be noted that the lower trunk section 10 may be made of a substantially rigid material, such as plastic or fiberglass, or may comprise suitable restraining cloth; even if made of flexible cloth, as a result of the pressure within the suit, the torso 10 will be substantially rigid when pressurized. Within the thigh portions 12, 14, there are a plurality of substantially parallel convolutes 18, 20 and a plurality of successively sized, tapered convolutes 22-24 and 2628. The convolute 22 has a smaller overall perimeter than the convolute 24, and convolute 26 has a smaller overall perimeter than convolute 28. This is to cause the upper ends of the thighs to join the torso 10 in the same fashion that the legs of a man join the lower trunk of his body. However, because of the pressure within the suit, the upper, larger convolutes 24, 28 will resist breaking (so as to permit flexion as illustrated in FIG. 2) toa much greater degree than will the smaller convolutes 22, 26. This is due to the much greater cross-sectional area within the convolutes 24, 28 than within the convolutes 22, 26. Since the suit is under pressure, each of the convolute sections 22-24 and 2628 become rigid members, and as such, behave much like a structural support beam. Since the upper ends of the sections (24, 28) are of a much larger diameter, they resist flexing to a much greater degree than the lower ends, in the same fashion as the thick end of a support beam resisting flexion more than a thin end thereof. As a result, the upper thigh convolutes tend to remain untlexed, whereas the break point between convolutes occurs between the convolute 26 and a convolute 20 as illustrated in FIG. 2. This causes the natural break point between the lower trunk 10 and the thighs 18, 20 to be much lower than the natural position of the body in the joint when the joint is flexed as illustrated by the dotted lines 16. In order for hip flexion to occur, therefore, the wearer must overcome the natural tendencies of the suit and cause the suit to flex beginning at the upper convolutes 24, 28 as illustrated in FIG. 3. In order to cause the suit to bend at the required point to put the wearer in flexion, the wearer must supply a high amount of torque to the suit in order to overcome the forces resulting from pressure which tends to cause the suit to bend as illustrated in FIG. 2. This results in fatigue of the wearer, as well as limiting the amount of flexion which can readily be achieved by the wearer.

It is the above problem to which the present invention is directed.

Referring now to FIG. 4, a torso 30 may, if desired, be joined to a lower trunk section by a waist transition piece 32. The waist transition is joined to each of two thigh sections 34, 36 by a hip-waist section 38 and a hip-crotch section 40. The thigh sections 34, 36 each comprise a plurality of substantially parallel convolutes. The hip-waist section 38 comprises, in the embodiment shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 herein, seven substantially parallel convolutes 41-47. The hip-crotch section comprises a pair of tapered convolutes for each leg 48, 49; 50, 51; and it also includes a shear panel 52. Within the crotch,and substantially at the joint of the shear panel 52 with the upper shaped convolutes 48, are a pair of sliding restraints 54, 55 through which are passed a pair of cables 56,

57. The cables 56, 57 terminate in one of the convolutes of the lower trunk such as the convolute 44, somewhere near the center of the hip-waist section 38. This termination may be effected by affixing the cable ends to plates or other semirigid pieces 58, 59 fixed to the cloth of the suit, or sewn therein, in any fashion known to the art. The cables 56, 57 cross at the front of the suit before passing through the sliding guides 54, 55 within the crotch.

A rear view of the pressurized suit portion of the present invention illustrated in FIG. 4 is substantially identical to the front view illustrated in FIG. 4, and for that reason has been eliminated herein for simplicity. In the rear of the suit, the cables 56, 57 again cross, and therefore, their termination points are on the same sides; that is, cable 57 starts at the left front of the suit and runs through the sliding guide 54 to the left rear of the suit; and cable 56 starts at the right front of the suit, runs through the guide 55 at the crotch, and terminates at the right rear of the suit. These cables are provided in order to pull the thigh sections 34, 36 both upwardly and inwardly, and the sliding guides 54, 55 permit the thighs to be flexed while maintaining the upward and inward restraint by the cable 56, 57; the guides 54, 55 sliding along each or both of the cables as necessary.

The important feature of the present invention is illustrated in the side view in FIG. 5. Therein, the dotted lines 60 illustrate the position of a wearer within the suit. In contrast with a suit of the prior art as illustrated in FIG. 3, the present invention makes no attempt to cause the suit to have break lines which conform exactly to the joints in the body, but rather it accommodates the wearer by allowing the suit to fold up over itself in the lower trunk section, thus accommodating the flexion of the thigh and/or the torso. It should be particularly noted that the forward portion of several of the convolutes (such as convolutes 42-44) may be completely folded under others of the convolutes of the lower trunk section (such as convolutes 45, 46). As a result, the natural tendency of the suit is to permit the thigh sections (such as section 34) to be very high with respect to the remainder of the suit, such as with respect to the waist transition 32. This permits a substantial hip or torso flexion at a very low torque. It should also be noted that the bunching of the suit, rather than being down near the crotch as in suits of the prior art, takes place out in front of the stomach of the wearer, in a fashion not unlike the bunching of the pants above the stomach of a man wearing street clothes when he sits down. Thus, instead of a tendency for the thighs to break too low, as illustrated in FIG. 2, the present invention permits a very high break point, with the bunching of the cloth up close to the waist, and out of the way of the hip and the crotch.

The cables 56, 57 and related apparatus illustrated in FIG. 4 have been eliminated from FIG. 5 since these do not readily show in this view. As the thigh is raised as illustrated in FIG. 5, the cable guides 54, 55 can slide along the related cable 56, 57 as necessary to permit the flexion; this sliding action requiring substantially no torque whatsoever and therefore not hampering the operation of the invention herein.

An alternative embodiment of the present invention is illustrated in FIG. 6. Therein, the shear panel 52 comprises three sections, two of which are visible in the FIG. 6. An upper section 52a has the cloth therein oriented with the warp horizontal, (as illustrated by the long arrow in FIG. 6) and a deepcrotch section 52b is positioned so that the warp of the cloth is oriented in a front to back direction, (as illustrated by the short arrow in FIG. 6) substantially perpendicular to the warp of the section 52a. Another section similar to 52a is provided in the rear of the suit, which is not shown herein for simplicity, it substantially resembling the panel 52a. The warp of the cloth in the convolutes of the hip'waist section 38 and the thigh sections 34, 36 is preferably horizontal in order to stabilize the size of the suit. As is known in the art, restraining cloth will stretch slightly in response to forces perpendicular to the warp, but will not stretch in any significant amount as a result of forces parallel with the warp. Thus, the shear panel deep crotch section 52b permits a little side-to-side stretch with no front to back stretch in order to enhance the mobility of the crotch area of the suit.

Lateral plug-load-restraint cables which are normally employed in the hip and legs of a pressurized suit should preferably be employed with the present invention. However, these are known to the art and have therefore been eliminated in all views herein for simplicity.

Although the invention has been shown and described with respect to a preferred embodiment thereof, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes and omissions in the form and detail thereof may be made therein without departing from the spirit and the scope of the invention.

We claim:

1. In a pressurized suit having a pair of suit leg sections, each including substantially parallel convolutes, including a front region adapted to be disposed about the thighs of the wearer thereof, a plug-load-restraining thigh-to-waist transition assembly adapted to be disposed over the hips and the lower trunk, including the buttocks and the stomach, of the wearer thereof, comprising:

a lower trunk section comprising a number of substantially parallel convolutes, including a front region adapted to be disposed over the stomach of the wearer thereof and a back region adapted to be disposed over the buttocks of the wearer thereof;

a hip-crotch section joined to the lowermost convolute of said lower trunk section and to the uppermost convolutes of each of the suit leg sections, said hip-crotch section including a crotch portion extending from the lowermost convolute of said lower trunk section at the front to the lowermost convolute of said lower trunk section at the rear and adapted to be disposed over the crotch of the wearer of the suit; and

crotch restraint means including sliding restraint-cable guide means afiixed in proximity with a substantially central region of said crotch section, and including crotch-restraint-cable means having one end affixed to said lower trunk assembly substantially centrally of said front region thereof, passing through said sliding restraint-cable guide means, and having the other end thereof affixed to said lower trunk section substantially centrally of said back region thereof.

2. The invention according to claim 1 wherein said crotch portion of said hip-crotch section comprises three fabric panels including a pair of panels, one in the front and one in the back, each joined to a substantial portion of the lowermost convolute of said lower trunk section in the front and in the back, respectively, and a deep crotch panel joining said pair of panels.

3. The invention according to claim 2 wherein said crotch section is formed of fabric having a greater amount of stretch in one direction than in another direction perpendicular thereto, and wherein the fabric in said pair of panels is oriented to provide the direction of greater stretch from top to bottom and the fabric in said deep crotch panel is oriented so as to provide the direction of greater stretch from side to side.

4. The invention according to claim 1 wherein said hipcrotch section comprises a pair of hip subsections, each relating to one of the suit leg sections, each including a plurality of tapered convolutes, the lowermost of which joins the uppermost convolute of the related leg section, the uppermost of which joins a related portion of the lowermost convolute of said lower trunk section.

5. The invention according to claim 4 wherein the number of tapered convolutes in each of said hip subsections is substantially less than the number of convolutes in said lower trunk section.

6. The invention according to claim I wherein said crotch restraint means includes a pair of sliding restraint-cable guide means, one disposed at each side of said crotch portion, and said crotch-restraint-cable means includes a first cable affixed section andpassing through the one of said sliding restraintcable guide means disposed at the right of said crotch portion,

whereby said first and second cables cross each other in the front and in the back.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION Patent No. a a 236 Dated April 197]- Douglas E. Getchell, Edwin G. Vail,

l- H I -II Inventor(s) It is certified that error appears in the above-identified patent and that said Letters Patent are hereby corrected as shown below:

Claim 1, column 4, lines 17 and 18, including a front region" should be deleted.

Signed and sealed this 13th day of July 1971.

(SEAL) Atteat:

EDWARD M.FI.ETCHER,JR. WILLIAM E. SGHUYLER,JR. Attesting Officer Commissioner of Patents 

1. In a pressurized suit having a pair of suit leg sections, each including substantially parallel convolutes, including a front region adapted to be disposed about the thighs of the wearer thereof, a plug-load-restraining thigh-to-waist transition assembly adapted to be disposed over the hips and the lower trunk, including the buttocks and the stomach, of the wearer thereof, comprising: a lower trunk section comprising a number of substantially parallel convolutes, including a front region adapted to be disposed over the stomach of the wearer thereof and a back region adapted to be disposed over the buttocks of the wearer thereof; a hip-crotch section joined to the lowermost convolute of said lower trunk section and to the uppermost convolutes of each of the suit leg sections, said hip-crotch section including a crotch portion extending from the lowermost convolute of said lower trunk section at the front to the lowermost convolute of said lower trunk section at the rear and adapted to be disposed over the crotch of the wearer of the suit; and crotch restraint means including sliding restraint-cable guide means affixed in proximity with a substantially central region oF said crotch section, and including crotch-restraint-cable means having one end affixed to said lower trunk assembly substantially centrally of said front region thereof, passing through said sliding restraint-cable guide means, and having the other end thereof affixed to said lower trunk section substantially centrally of said back region thereof.
 2. The invention according to claim 1 wherein said crotch portion of said hip-crotch section comprises three fabric panels including a pair of panels, one in the front and one in the back, each joined to a substantial portion of the lowermost convolute of said lower trunk section in the front and in the back, respectively, and a deep crotch panel joining said pair of panels.
 3. The invention according to claim 2 wherein said crotch section is formed of fabric having a greater amount of stretch in one direction than in another direction perpendicular thereto, and wherein the fabric in said pair of panels is oriented to provide the direction of greater stretch from top to bottom and the fabric in said deep crotch panel is oriented so as to provide the direction of greater stretch from side to side.
 4. The invention according to claim 1 wherein said hip-crotch section comprises a pair of hip subsections, each relating to one of the suit leg sections, each including a plurality of tapered convolutes, the lowermost of which joins the uppermost convolute of the related leg section, the uppermost of which joins a related portion of the lowermost convolute of said lower trunk section.
 5. The invention according to claim 4 wherein the number of tapered convolutes in each of said hip subsections is substantially less than the number of convolutes in said lower trunk section.
 6. The invention according to claim 1 wherein said crotch restraint means includes a pair of sliding restraint-cable guide means, one disposed at each side of said crotch portion, and said crotch-restraint-cable means includes a first cable affixed at each end to said front and back regions at points which are to the right of the center of said lower trunk section and passing through the one of said sliding restraint-cable guide means disposed at the left side of said crotch portion, and a second cable affixed at each end to said front and back regions at points which are to the left of the center of said lower trunk section and passing through the one of said sliding restraint-cable guide means disposed at the right of said crotch portion, whereby said first and second cables cross each other in the front and in the back. 